Good news for Joburg roads

CEO of Ennik Estates, Ronald Ennik said Johannesburg’s R2 billion road plan was good news for home values.

He said, “If Johannesburg residential property was a share market, home prices would be rallying on weekend media reports that the city council plans to spend around R2 billion over the next three years on rebuilding and upgrading road infrastructure.”

Ennik added that homeowners in and around the business districts of Sandton and Rosebank would be particularly pleased at the news that roads in their areas would be a major focus of the renewal programme announced by Mayor Parks Tau. “The announcement is particularly welcome given the serious weekday peak-hour gridlock that has taken hold in key areas north of the city as commercial development and redevelopment continues to outpace infrastructural maintenance and expansion,” he said.

Ennik said it was encouraging that Tau reportedly singled out the perennial pothole problem on which the city council would be spending almost R80 million on patching and fixing cracks. “In May this year I warned that ongoing poor maintenance of Johannesburg’s decaying suburban road infrastructure posed a real threat to the city’s residential property values, particularly in prime areas,” he said.

“The fact remains that even the most astute of buyers who visit homes on roads blemished by potholes, broken and blocked kerb inlets, and poorly constructed pavements or worse, no pavements, subliminally devalue the property before they even get to look at it, let alone make an offer.”

He said by turning this problem around, the city council would be restoring lost value to many individual streets, and even entire suburbs that have become ‘marked down’ as a result of past poor delivery on road maintenance and development.